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Published: September 7th 2010
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Day 1:
We arrived in Rome at about 4pm, to the hottest heat we had yet experienced. This is the sort of heat that creates a constant layer of sweat covering your body, I mean HOT HOT heat. I guess we get what we wished for when up in Northern Europe it was cold and we wished it was hot.
We trudged through the city from the train station in hopes of finding our hostel easily. It wasn't too, too bad, but the walk was still 15 minutes in the burning heat. We arrived to a hostel room with eight beds--this was going to be another fun adventure sharing space with strangers.
We put our things down, checked email (the usual whenever we are lucky enough to have internet), and headed out to the city. Lauren and I ate at this little pizza place across the street from our hostel. The pizzas here are AMAZING! Nothing at home compares. But when the pizzas were delivered they looked quite strange. I mean, the pizzas here typically do look a little "different" (they put zucchini, fancy ham, green olives, ect.), but my pizza especailly was a little odd. Instead of
any sort of sauce, my pizza was covered in olive oil. Olive oil and cheese along with a few pieces of ham and literally 3 whole olives. Not quite what I was expecting...But our waiter was very nice, and the pizza still tasted quite good, though not all that flavorful.
By this time it was about dusk but we were still able to wander around the Colosseum just as the sun was setting. It was magnificant! We kept walking as far as we could--past old Roman Monuments, historical churches, grand buildings that looked like they held important significance in their prime times.
The history in this city is just emense. It's crazy to think that at one time the Roman empire ruled so much of Europe, and all that remains are some bricks and stones. Even still, just the piles of rubble look important in this city! Without a map or any sense of direction, it seemed that whatever we looked at must have been imporant at one time or another.
We ended our personal walking tour at the Trevi fountain which I absolutely adored. It is huge!...And beautiful, but that's a given. Of course, we found
our 1 cent Euros to toss into the famous fountain of love!
We made it back to the hostel and decided, for convenience purposes of course, to just eat at the restaurant across the street--not the one we at at for lunch with the strange pizza.
The owner of the restaurant was the man who was serving us...In a tanktop, with his sweaty belly hanging out :/ It was really disgusting. Lauren and I sat down and put our purses on the side of the table where no one was sitting and OH BOY did we get in trouble. At first he was yelling in Italian, then began saying "No no no, the table is for the FOOD not the PURSES!!!" as he took our purses and put them on the empty chairs. We sure learned our lessons....
Then of course he wasn't quite pleased when Lauren wanted to order just dessert because she wasn't very hungry at all...He gave her quite a dirty look when she ordered her Tiramisu without any substantial Italian meal to go with it...We got out of that restaurant as quickly as possible!
DAY 2:
Today the length
of our trip began to hit me. It finally feels like we have been traveling for 3.5 weeks with heavy backpacks on and off of our backs. Instead of giving ourselves a walking tour around this gigantic city we decided to splurge a little a buy a Tour bus ticket.
We bought the 2 day pass which gave us access to these stylish bright red buses (not touristy at all) for two whole days before we left Rome.
We began our day at Saint Peter's Basilica and the Vatican.
Saint Peter's is the largest Christian church in the world and can hold up to 60,000 people inside (this is disregarding the HUGE courtyard where thousands upon thousands of people flock to to see the Pope). Every corner of this church has been paid very special attention, and it is clear in the detail. As beautiful as all the churches have been, this obviously takes the prize for being the best of the best. Oh, and Lauren and I made sure to dress appropriately this time so that we wouldn't have to wear strange purple cover-up/dress things again. I'm glad we thought about it too, because we saw
plenty of women being turned around because of shoulders or legs showing.
After we were awestruck by the inside of St. Peter's, we wandered through the halls of the Vatican grotto where there are hundreds of tombs of famous religious figures, emperors, composers, popes, ect.
Next was Vatican City and the Vatican museum.
The museum was awesome! It's a huge building filled from corner to corner with great masterpieces ranging from Leonardo da Vinci, Dali, to of course the Sistine Chapel. I have never seen that many Roman statues in my life!!! Thankfully the museum was not crowded when we arrived, and had our own space. The Sistine Chapel was great, really, really great. Standing under and looking up just puts you back in time--it really does! We used Lauren's little travel book to look at each panel and know what exactly it was representing. It was truly amazing.
We wandered around Vatican city, but wanted to save the Colosseum tour for tomorrow as we were quite pooped!
DAY 3:
Today is the Colosseum.
We hopped back on our big, red, double-decker bus and headed to the most famous structure in all of
Roma.
The line looked quite intimidating, but a nice young guy working there told us that we could take a short cut. The next thing we knew we were at the front of the line buying our tickets. We decided to get a tour guide, as this is the sort of monument where you really want to know all the details.
Our guide clearly didn't speak English that well so that was rather disappointing as it was difficult to understand her at times. The Colosseum was really great. It's so, so so old and so famous! We learned alot, saw a lot, and after the tour wandered around on our own for a little bit.
After the Colosseum we went up to the Roman Forum where we had sweeping views of the city. We saw the old chariot racing area, St. Peter's, the Colosseum, and just about every church in Rome. It was awesome!!
Time to get back to the hostel and pack up as we needed to catch our flight to...Spain!!!
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Connie Grimes-Gruber
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Amazing Emily
I am so happy for you, Em. You are seeing so much of the world and seem to be absorbing more than I could. Has school started yet? Linda and I had a great one day in Rome and the Vatican, but of course didn't see as much as you have. Love you, Connie